This paper examines the problem of measuring the growth of a monetary aggregate in the presence of innovations in financial markets and changes in the relationship between individual assets and output. We propose constructing a monetary aggregate so that it is a good leading indicator of nominal...

This paper examines the implications of a 'major-risk' approach to health insurance using data from the National Medical Expenditure Survey. We study the impact of switching from existing coverage to a policy with a 50 percent coinsurance rate and 10 percent of income limit on out-of-pocket...

The evidence presented in this paper supports the basic theoretical presumption that state and local governments cannot redistribute income. Since individuals can avoid unfavorable taxes by migrating to jurisdictions that offer more favorable tax conditions, a relatively unfavorable tax will...

This paper studies the possibility of using the broad monetary aggregate M2 to target the quarterly rate of growth of nominal GDP. Our findings indicate that the Federal Reserve could probably guide M2 in a way that reduces not only the long-term average rate of inflation but also the variance...

The social security payroll tax has become the largest tax paid by the majority of American households. Although, the statutory marginal social security tax rate is the same for all those with wage and salary income up to the maximum level, the complex rules linking social security taxes and...

This paper extends earlier work by Feldstein and Horioka on the relation between domestic saving rates and international capital flows or, equivalently, between domestic saving rates and domestic investment. The basic conclusion of the present analysis is that an increase in domestic saving has...

The actual value added tax systems used in many countries differ significantly from the completely general VAT that has been the focus of most economic analyses. In practice, VAT systems exempt broad classes of consumer goods and services. This has important implications for the effect of the...

The first two years of the economic expansion that began in 1983 were unusually strong and were accompanied by better inflation performance than would have been expected on the basis of experience in past recoveries. Our evidence contradicts the popular view that the recovery was the result of a...

Because of the restrictive assumptions required to establish the theory of Ricardian equivalence, its relevance in practice is essentially an empirical question. The strongest direct evidence in favor of Ricardian equivalence is Roger Kormendi's (1983) article in the American Economic Review....

The present paper introduces a new index of the real value of the dollar relative to 80 other currencies. The individual exchange rates are combined with weights that reflect the recent (1984) multilateral pattern of trade. This new index confirms that the dollar rose very sharply between...